I’ll be speaking at Ignite 13 in PDX ==================================== By George Mandis https://george.mand.is/2016/10/ill-be-speaking-at-ignite-13-in-pdx Tuesday, October 18th 2016 I'll be speaking for 5 minutes (literally) at [Ignite Portland 13 ](http://igniteportland.org)this year! The event is on November 2nd at [OMSI](https://omsi.edu), the doors open at 6:45 and the presentations begin at 7:30pm. Seats are first-come, first-serve, but there is a registration page setup on [Eventbrite](http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ignite-portland-13-tickets-15368663085) to help them gauge attendance and also a [Facebook event](https://www.facebook.com/events/1580296292266403/). If you're unfamiliar with Ignite Portland this gist is this: speakers get on stage and present on a topic they're passionate about. They get 20 slides with each auto-advancing every 15 seconds. It’s a little like [PechaKucha](http://www.pechakucha.org/) only instead of seven minutes we get five. I'm going to be talking about the year I spent [traveling](/travel-writing/) and working around the world — what it was like, what I learned, what I’d suggest to others aspiring to something similar. I will try my best not to let it devolve into a bunch of vacation photos... but that might be my backup plan if words fail! I have no doubt that [certain](http://george.mand.is/2014/02/blowing-out-the-candles-for-agios-ilias-in-athens/) [photos](http://george.mand.is/2014/02/skagastrond-and-sundays/) [will](http://george.mand.is/2014/02/retro-travel-journal-cuzco-peru-avalanches-ruins-unexpected-friendships/) [be](http://george.mand.is/2014/03/international-standards-rating-bathroom-cleanliness/) [making](http://george.mand.is/2014/03/rickety-bridge-less-ancient-ruins-bulgaria/) [an](http://george.mand.is/2014/04/sento-silence-vending-machines-retro-future-promises-tokyo/) [appearance](http://george.mand.is/2014/05/how-to-make-zanzibar-soup/). So if you’re in Portland, Oregon and need something to do on Wednesday, November 2nd, please come and say hi! And if you’re curious, here’s what I wrote for my [proposal](http://present.igniteportland.org/proposals/786): > As a freelance web developer my job has always made me more location-independent than most, and in 2013 I decided to explore what a the lifestyle of a “digital nomad” might look like. I spent a full year traveling and working, literally circumnavigating the globe, through 18 countries. > > From Portland to Argentina, Iceland, Kenya, Turkey, Japan and many, many more places inbetween, it was a very ordinary year (in some ways) set against an extraordinary backdrop and sprinkled with extraordinary people and experiences. I worked. I cooked meals at home with food I’d find in the markets. People came and went in my life. I’d go on long runs in the woods, or beaches, when I could. > > Good things happened: I made new friends that I’m still in touch with. I ate amazing and exotic foods. I saw beautiful things I’d only seen in photos. I was touched by the incredible kindness and trust of strangers all over and — in what was probably a highlight — met long-lost family members for the first time in Serbia to put a bookend on a family story 60+ years in the making. > > Some bad things happened too: I was robbed after a lapse in judgement. A long-distance relationship fell apart. My grandmother passed away and I found myself homesick, from time to time. > > But most of these things could happen in an ordinary year, even if I’d never left Portland. It was, in words I found in an email from that year, when describing this endeavor to a friend, “a year like any other year, just somewhere else.”